


In the Line

by Brumeier



Series: Bite Sized Fic 2018 [9]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Community: hc_bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gun Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Post-Sentinel Too Part 2, Prompt Fill, Sentinel Bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 08:33:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13900263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Pleasure & Pain prompt:Any military/cop/action fandom, any, taking a bullet/hit for someone else is less painful than watching them get hurtIn which a routine questioning turns into a life or death situation.





	In the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the Wounded square for Sentinel Bingo and the Bullet Wound square for H/C Bingo

"Stay in the truck," Jim said. It was an automatic request, leaving his mouth without any real conscious thought. Blair would've argued, before, but he would've stayed put. Things were different now. 

"You stay in the fucking truck," Blair muttered. He got out, slamming the door shut with more force than necessary. Jim winced. 

"Sandburg --" 

"Let's just do this." 

Jim squared his jaw and nodded. Routine questioning, that's all they were doing. Except nothing seemed routine anymore. Blair had changed in ways that Jim didn't like, ways that made him nervous. The kid had always been kind of fearless, throwing himself into dangerous situations if he thought he could help. But now it was like he just didn't care. 

Sometimes Jim thought that dying once had taken away Blair's fear of dying again. More than that, it was like he'd lost his joy in simply being alive. 

"We'll take this nice and easy, Chief, okay? We don't want to spook Blake." 

"I know," Blair replied in clipped tones. 

If Jim wasn’t so swamped with guilt he'd be pretty pissed off at Blair's attitude. But all those negative changes were his fault. Blair's death, his pain over the way Jim had acted with Alex...Jim had let his emotions rule him instead of his brain and everything had gone wrong. He didn't know how to fix it. 

Emery Blake owned a garage downtown, specializing in body work and auto detailing. He was also a person of interest in a major car theft ring that was tied to two fresh homicides and possibly a half dozen cold cases. Jim wanted to finesse the guy, get him thinking he was helping out Major Crimes instead of digging himself a bigger hole, because Jim was after the brains of the operation and not just a little fish like Blake. 

Jim dialed down as they entered, the smell of oil and gasoline and paint enough to overwhelm his heightened senses. 

"Detective," Blake said warily. He was an older guy, late forties, with a salt-and-pepper beard and a noticeable scar over his left eye. He wiped his hands on a greasy towel. "Back again?" 

"I just had a few follow-up questions," Jim said congenially. "If you have time?" 

Blake glanced back at the two cars up on lifts and then shrugged. "I can spare a few minutes." 

They followed him to a dirty, dented metal desk set up in the corner. The top of it was covered in grease-smeared paperwork, car part catalogues, and receipts speared on one of those little spikes. Blake dropped down into the chair behind the desk and motioned for Jim and Blair to take the two seats opposite. 

"Just pressed these pants," Jim said. No way he was sitting down in that dusty, dirty chair. 

Blair, on the other hand, perched on the edge of the desk and grabbed one of the catalogs, flipping through it idly like he had nothing else to interest him there. It set Blake more at ease. 

Jim pulled out his notebook and made a show of flipping pages. "You said that you owed money to Eddie Drexel, a loan to get out of some gambling debts. Is that right?" 

"Just a couple grand," Blake said dismissively. "I've been paying on installments." 

"Did he ever send anyone over here to lean on you? Threaten you?" 

Blake shifted in his chair. "No. Nothing like that. Like I said, it was just a couple grand. Chump change." 

Jim could read the lie on his face, in his body language, the way his heart started racing. Drexel, as far as they could tell, was the money man for whoever was orchestrating the theft of the cars. If they could bring him in Jim knew it would be the break they needed. 

"Listen, Emery. Drexel is a person of interest in a couple of homicides. He's a bad guy. You don't want to be associated with him, right? If he threatened you what's to say he won't be back to try again with more force this time? Hard to work on cars with broken fingers." 

Blake looked down at his hands, and them immediately dropped them into his lap. "He didn't do nothing to me. I swear." 

Blair tossed the catalog back on the desk, making Blake jump. "He doesn't know anything, Jim. I'm sure Drexel won't bother him. He's too busy trying to cover up the murders of those other guys." 

"Wait. What guys?" 

Jim raised his eyebrows. "Don't you follow the news?" 

"I don't have time for news! Who did Drexel take out?" 

"Couple guys on Southside. One of them was running a chop shop." 

Blake knew who Jim was talking about, his expression said it loud and clear. There was fear there now, and something else, something Jim couldn't quite put his finger on. And then Blair was standing up and slapping both hands on the desk. 

"You want to be next? Or do you want to help us out? I got better things to do with my day, man." 

Blair was radiating anger and Jim didn't know why. Blake stared at him with wide eyes. Then Blair was reaching across the desk like he was going to grab Blake and shake him, and two things happened simultaneously: Jim reached over to pull Blair back and Blake produced a 9mm handgun from the desk. 

"You really are stupid," Blair said. 

"Sandburg --" 

"We're trying to help you, you jerk. And you pull a gun?" 

Blake scrambled out of his chair, holding the gun out in front of him with a trembling grip. Jim held his hands up in a placating gesture. 

"Emery. You're making a mistake. We're on your side." 

"I know you're not on my fucking side, cop! You want me to help bring Drexel in? I'd be signing my own death warrant!" 

"We can help you," Jim insisted. 

"No-one can help me!" And now Jim could see that thing he'd been missing earlier. It was despair. Blake honestly thought he had no recourse, and that meant the situation was more dangerous than Jim had originally thought. 

"I can offer you protection," Jim said. 

"You think Drexel can't reach me on the inside?" 

It was sounding like Drexel was more than just the money man. Could it be the loan-sharking was a front for his more serious business? 

"Listen, buddy," Blair said. "You've got no reason not to help us. We put Drexel away, you're free to go back to your life." 

"And what about Bobby?" Blake was near tears, and Jim tried to think who Bobby was. Someone involved with Drexel? A family member? "He's fucking dead!" 

Jim didn't like the way Blake was keeping his gun trained on Blair but pulling his own seemed too risky considering Blake's emotional state. 

"He wouldn't want you to die, too," Blair said. He sounded like his old self in that moment, full of empathy and quiet understanding. "If he loved you, he'd want you to live the life he never got to." 

Who the fuck was Bobby? 

Jim could tell that Blair's words were having the desired effect. Blake was openly crying now, and he was starting to lower the gun. Jim was ready to move in when someone in the garage dropped something with a reverberating clang that had Jim flinching and lowering his hearing dial. Blake, startled as well, jerked the 9mm back up and squeezed the trigger. 

Everything seemed to slow down. Jim saw Blake's finger, saw the change in pressure, and he moved without even thinking about it. He lunged in front of Blair, because the shot would've hit him in the head and Jim wasn't going to watch his best friend die a second time. 

The impact of the shot sent Jim skidding to his knees, his shoulder numb. He fumbled with his non-dominant hand for his gun, but it seemed to take forever for him to draw it and flip off the safety. By the time he got himself sorted out and pushed himself clumsily back to his feet, Blair had already disarmed Blake and was on his cell phone calling for an ambulance. 

"I didn't mean to do that," Blake said over and over. 

Blair pushed him into one of the chairs and cuffed him to it with Jim's handcuffs. Only once Blake had been taken care of did he turn his attention to Jim, hands gentle as they took the gun and guided him into the other chair. 

"You okay, big guy?" 

"It's nothing," Jim said. And that was true. He'd been shot before. He knew he could get through it. Blair wouldn't have been so lucky and the thought of how close he'd come to losing him again took Jim's breath away. 

Blair pulled off his flannel shirt and balled it up, pressing it firmly against Jim's wound. The numbness gave way to a burning pain that had Jim hissing between his teeth and tensing up. Fuck! 

"Turn your touch dial down. Way down," Blair said softly. "The bullet's still in there. It wasn't a through and through." 

That wasn't great news. A ricochet could cause all kinds of damage. 

"The ambulance is on its way, and I'm right here with you." 

"I'm sorry, chief," Jim said, panting just a little. He couldn't seem to get a handle on the touch dial; every time he turned it down it spun back up again. "I'm sorry for Alex. For all of it." 

Blair rested his forehead against Jim's. "You didn't do anything wrong." 

"I did _everything_ wrong. And you paid the price." All of Jim's dials were slipping now, making him feel unsteady and dizzy. He wanted to say more, he wanted to admit how much he loved Blair, but he was having trouble putting the words together. 

"It's okay. I hear you. I hear you, Jim." 

Blair pressed a kiss to Jim's forehead and Jim tilted his head back, brushing Blair's lips with his own. 

"We'll fix this," Jim said. 

"Together," Blair promised, his eyes bright. 

"Chief?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Who the fuck is Bobby?" 

Blair's laughter mingled with the sound of approaching sirens.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** As soon as I saw this prompt, Jim and Blair were the first ones I thought about. Particularly since Jim has already gone through the pain of seeing Blair dead once and would go out of his way to keep that from happening again.


End file.
